Rust!

Chilly and breezy though it was on Sunday, with the recent awful weather it seemed too good a chance to miss some potential rust hunting, so off I toddled. Dunno why but I was in the mood to gather a handful of rust and ask "how much?" again at last, so in consequence I came away with one or two goodies. The Tall Scotsman was in attendance and in festive mood. Right off I spotted one of the thin mortise chisels was still there, so in a spirit of research I gathered it up along with a delicate (and still useable, just for a change) boxwood shave and a pair of secateurs the Old Man fancied. Price was okay, 'specially bearing in mind the spokeshave, so I coughed up. As I say, he was in festive mood and wanted to show me this and that, and while leading me to a box so to do I spotted a marking gauge that took my fancy and another transaction took place - turns out to be by Joseph Tyzack I think. This may have earned me "most favoured customer" status for that moment, 'cos one of the things he wanted to show me was a multi-tip screwdriver of novel design. No obvious maker visible at the time, but very interesting, so I said as much. "Here ya go" sez he, "Have it. But bring it back when you've cleaned it up so I can see whether you've made a good job of it."

Coo.

I thanked him profusely and we moved on to the next "item of interest" - the largest size of London pattern turnscrew (18" I think he said) in as-new condition. Perishing big screwdriver, I tell you. But the best bit was he actually had 3 or 4 screws of the right size to fit it. Goodness knows what they were intended for; usually large fasteners means ships and such, but these were ordinary steel. At the extreme opposite end of the scale was a nifty "drawknife", craftsman-made with ebony caps as handles at either end of a wickedly razor sharp knife blade. He muttered about it being for violin making, but I was hopelessly off the ball so I failed to ask for clarification.

Anyway eventually we went on our merry way and I was pretty convinced I must have had my good luck for the day. However, in amongst an unpromising-looking seller's goodies was another box of rust, from which I hauled a virtually unused 1 3/4" Hearnshaw brothers double iron, dittto on the condition of a larger spokeshave, a few bits including another variety of reamer and a wooden 3 1/2ft Tee-square. The reamers are funny; I went for years without seeing one and now I'm ending up with one of virtually every pattern ever made. As for the Tee-square, well who can resist mahogany with ebony edges? Well I can't... And yeah, you're thinking "how did a 3 1/2 foot square fit in a box?" - it didn't. In fact I nearly missed it altogether, it being in full view and all.



Time caught up with me so I don't have a pic of the cleaned goodies yet 'cos it was too dark, but I did finally track down the details of the screwdriver despite the patent number I found on it being apparently completely wrong. Luckily "Nettlefolds" was enough to assist me to find the correct patent here. Although I bet you have no idea how many patents Nettlefolds took out...